For Wilshire Baptist Church
I went out at noon Wednesday to hang Christmas lights on the house and had to face one of my biggest fears. Not heights, not electricity. No, it was yellowjackets.
I waited until noon to catch the warmest part of the day, and when I clanked my aluminum extension ladder against the gutter at my usual starting point on the corner, I suddenly saw yellowjackets buzzing around the top of the ladder and wall and then me. I scooted away, my arms flailing to keep them off me, and then for the next half hour, I banged around the house with a broom trying to find out where the yellowjackets were coming from, but I couldn’t find a source.
After trying to conjure up a plan B — perhaps beginning the work at night when yellowjackets are docile and less likely to sting — I got up my nerve and climbed the ladder, plugged the first string of lights into the soffit outlet, and began clipping the lights one-by-one onto the gutter. I couldn’t get away from that corner of the house fast enough, and I had no problems for the next three hours as I made my way around the front and side of the house. Although I’ll admit my heart raced every time a shadow moved across my vision, whether it was a moth or a bird or a Southwest Airlines jet.
So, why am I so undone by yellowjackets? I’ve never been stung horribly by them, never had an allergic reaction. I think I’m fearful because my first stings were so unexpected. The first time I was stung by anything at all, I was a toddler walking barefoot on my grandparents’ driveway and I stepped on a bee. It stung me between my toes, which not only hurt but startled me, and I screamed like the toddler I was. Another time, a ball went between the doghouse and a brick wall, and while retrieving it, I stuck my hand into a big nest I couldn’t see. In both cases, the unexpected consequences of normal activity became the stuff of nightmares and later, adult fear.
It’s absurd when I think about it. I’ve faced much more real danger in my life and I’ve survived so far. And yet, yellowjackets are still at the top my list of fears right along with public speaking.
Our Advent theme at Wilshire this year is “Hope for a Weary World.” Three years ago, it was “Hopes and Fears,” taken from a line from the carol, “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.” We were in the middle of the pandemic and there was plenty to fear with so many unknowns about COVID. There also was hope we would see the light on the other side of the darkness, and we have.
I’m glad we’re leaning into “hope” again this year, especially because we indeed are living in a world weary from fear, uncertainty and unrest. You can almost feel it, and you definitely can read and hear about it. We’re weary from disease, war, divisive politics, climate change, bad actions and bad behavior, and the constant negative messages coming from social media and traditional media alike. There’s a swarm of chaos and confusion buzzing around our heads like yellowjackets ready to sting, making us anxious and fearful and just plain weary.
Some of our fear is very real, and some is exaggerated like my fear of yellowjackets. It’s often hard to separate the real from the imagined, but in either case we need to remember the hope we magnify and illuminate at Christmas in the birth of Christ.
I got the lights up around the house without any falls, shocks or stings. I never did find a yellowjacket nest. Apparently, they were just doing whatever yellowjackets do on these spring-like afternoons before winter comes and sends them away. My wish for this Advent season is our fears will take flight as we remember the one true source of hope symbolized in the lights of Christmas.